Sustainability

The session was moderated by Dr Dakshina Murthy and the panel members were Mr. Ramanathan, CEO, 4R Recycling pvt Ltd. , Mr. A Vaidyanathan, CEO, PAQS, Ms. Shubha and Ms. Pallavi, Elcita (Sustainability initiatives).

The session started with Dr. Dakshina Murthy defining the term Sustainability in the words of Mahatma Gandhi. Meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising for the future is sustainability. Sustainability is also about how to preserve resources and also to bring in the balance between economy and the environment.

Mr. Vaidyanathan posed a question to students about who is the richest man in the world? and check if the same person working on sustainability. He took the example of Uber to narrate how sustainability has been embedded with their organisation.

Mr. Ramanathan spoke about the journey of his company and the opportunities that they could tap by embracing sustainability in recycling. Moving from the tag of scrap dealer to e-waste manager was a difficult task. Recycling is not an issue in India, but the problem is how old is the thing to be recycled. First, we need to think about ‘sustain’ and then ‘sustainable’ and then only we arrive at ‘sustainability’. Sustainability as a business is something which is trending. Ms. Shubha gave a product to the student volunteers to market the same to the audience. She also explained that sustainability is the core of Elcita’s functionality. As a part of the activity, she spoke about how the packaging of products containing plastic can be harmful to the environment. Being conscious about the environment during our acts in the day is good to go on the path of sustainability. Ms. Shubha also highlighted that Elcita is working towards Net zero. Ms. Pallavi spoke about Integrated water management an initiative of Elcita. Integrated water management covers 3 areas such as groundwater, fresh water and sewage water. She explained how Elcita has been taking steps towards achieving the same.